Judge backs model who became the unwitting ‘face of HIV’

A MODEL who had her image unwittingly used in ads declaring she was HIV positive has won a major defamation lawsuit against a photo company.

Unwitting ‘face of HIV’ wins lawsuit

BACKING a model who unwittingly became the face of HIV, a Manhattan judge has ruled that the disease is considered “loathsome” by society.

The ruling, in response to a lawsuit filed by Avril Nolan, whose image was used by a state agency in ads promoting the rights of HIV-positive New Yorkers, allows the model — who does not have HIV — to seek damages under the argument that the ad was defamatory.

A lawyer for the state’s Division of Human Rights, which purchased Nolan’s image from a stock photography company for its citywide ad campaign, tried to argue that HIV is not a “loathsome disease for defamation purposes.”

But Court of Claims Justice Thomas Scuccimarra disagreed, finding that people who are HIV positive are sometimes subjected to “public contempt, ridicule, aversion or disgrace.”

“Not just sexually transmitted diseases fall under the loathsome disease category,” Scuccimarra wrote, “but any disease that arouses some intense disgust in society, in part because it is viewed as incurable or chronic.”

Nolan’s 2013 suit says the implication that she had the disease left her “feeling humiliated.”

After learning from her Pilates instructor that he saw her in a newspaper ad in April 2013, Nolan “became instantly upset” that “relatives, potential romantic partners and clients” would see the quarter-page, colour advertisements featuring a large photograph of Nolan with the words, “I am positive (+)” and “I have rights.”

Nolan, 27, of Brooklyn, had posed for a photographer friend, who was shooting for an online music publication. The photographer later sold the picture to Getty Images, which reached a confidential settlement with Nolan in January.

The judge noted that state employees never stopped to think they might be violating Nolan’s rights in their effort to raise awareness.

“That the state was negligent is self-evident,” Scuccimarra said in his ruling this week.

The judge will hold a hearing on April 20, 2016, to determine how much the state will have to pay Nolan for the defamation.

This article originally appeared on New York Post and was reproduced with permission.

Originally published as Judge backs model who became the unwitting ‘face of HIV’